2i6 Atmospheric Changes. 



practise the average hap-hazard culture should sneer at it, and refuse to 

 recognize hap-hazard culture as any culture at all ; but he must recognize 

 it. It will never do for him to ignore positive facts, — such as lack of 

 general nicety in culture, and lack of assiduous watchfulness. There are 

 a vast many men in the world who are not watchful and painstaking in 

 fruit-culture, who yet love fruits, and will grow them for themselves ; just 

 as there are a vast many men who are not critics or dilettanti, who will 

 read average poems, and buy average pictures. 



And why do I write in this strain ? Is it to encourage mediocrity ? Is 

 it to disparage the efforts of advanced pomologists .-• Is it to make a plea 

 for popular taste, and against cultivated taste ? Not at all. It is simply to 

 make clear the proper distinction between the two, and to secure its appro- 

 priate recognition. 



This recognition once made, and the advisory horticultural committees 

 could tell us more justly what is suited to common culture, and what to 

 special culture. I plead only for the infiltration of the learned societies' 

 reports with a little more of common sense, and an adaptation of their 

 advice to the masses. Donald G. Mitchell. 



Edgewood. 



ATMOSPHERIC CHANGES. 



Every one knows that our climate must be ranked among those termed 

 excessive; i.e., subject to great diurnal fluctuations, and a wide annual range 

 of temperature. These unpleasant changes, characteristic of the whole area 

 excepting parts of the Pacific coast, are dependent on natural causes, and, 

 of course, entirely beyond our control. The wide extent of land in high 

 latitudes condemned by cold to perpetual desolation, and the absence of 

 lofty mountain-ranges running east and west, render us liable at all seasons 

 to violent and frigid winds from the north ; while, on the other hand, we 

 derive little benefit from the mitigating influences of the Gulf Stream, from 

 the fact that the polar current flows between it and our eastern coast, and 

 that the prevailing winds are from the west. 



These points of climatology have been often discussed, and are well 



